Second Label Signing - rumor

[mercfan3]

I guess I really should have been more clear. My point was that Katy's probably the biggest pop star right now, despite not selling as well as some of the other superstars. Not that she wasn't selling well. I was just trying to say that I think singles are becoming more important. (Katy has hit after hit after hit..)

[Tusk]

I think the LP reached it's peak in the 70's 80's when artists wrote songs with a theme for the album in mind. Which songs they chose and in which order were careful considerations to give the LP it's identity. Pink Floyd were masters of this, "Wish You Were Here, The Wall, Dark Side of the Moon" as was Led Zeppelin and many others.

The music industry, especially in the social sense, the market, since has been moving towards singles and away from the 'album' concept. Sure, there is considerations to be had which song to go on the album, but not in the perspective of creating an LP that is an 'entity onto itself'. Our society's attention span grows shorter by the second every year and is not conducive to sitting to listen to a 'whole album' as was a popular past time in decades past

To illustrate this, we can look to Caley's Stageit.

Nick posted the entire, unedited show on Youtube (The Album)



it just broke 42K views

On my Channel, I edited out and posted just the performances (singles)

Sail has combined almost 68K views
HTRJ has combined almost 38K views
My Cake has combined almost 26K views

The top 3 viewed Stageit performances, combined, are viewed almost 3 times as much as the whole show.

All the Stageit videos combined have roughly over 195K views

If I were able to monetize the views (which I can't obviously because I don't own the rights to any of them) I would be 'making' more money than Nick. In Youtube, the key to making money apparently is to make lots of short videos regularly, create a subscription base so people return often and see more ads.

Sure, those with longer videos make money too, but to optimize it, you need to grease the wheel, do episodes instead of long stories.

21st century media consumption has been socially engineered towards the sound bite and short attention span

[john]

^ Of course, back in the day you could buy the single, or not, or buy the album, or not. Setting aside the issue of downloading songs for free, now purchases can be made a' la carte. I remember buying albums and being very disappointed when the majority of the songs sucked. One of the nice things about the Beatles was that they could consistently fill an album with good material, while many other bands couldn't pull this off.

[lauraliz]

I really miss those days when it was all about the album. In fact, I don't remember ever buying a single after I was 13 yrs old, that is, until itunes started ruling the world.

It's true-especially when you were young and had limited resources--that you better be sure you were going to like the majority of songs on the album. If not, it was a real bummer haha. There were certain artists that I knew I would love whatever they put out. So, those were no brainer purchases. You could also go to the record store and listen to it before hand. Mostly, I remember just hearing music over a friend's house and then deciding if I wanted it. A great resource was always my friends' older brothers or sisters' music collection. (I was the oldest in my family) I found out about a lot of slightly older cool albums that way--including all the Beatles stuff.

It was also fun to read the liner notes and check out which studio musicians were playing on the songs/albums. That was big thing for me.

Listening to the entire Dark Side of the Moon album every day after school was practically a requirement in 10th or 11th grade.

I feel sorry for the kids these days. I think they are missing out. I think the quality of music would be so much better if it wasn't all about the single. There would be better artists making a living.

[Tusk]

Which songs they chose and in which order were careful considerations to give the LP it's identity. Pink Floyd were masters of this, "Wish You Were Here, The Wall, Dark Side of the Moon" as was Led Zeppelin and many others.

Though Albums don't have the near prominence as they once had compared to singles, according to this article, albums and song order still have relevancy in this next era

The Importance Of Album Track Order In The Digital Age
December 04, 2012

The sequencing of tracks on an album may have long been subject to artists' creative muses, but, according to A&R and streaming services decision-makers, the order in which songs appear on a set can have far-reaching effects on an acts', and labels', bottom lines, especially in an era of digital music consumption.

As digital music becomes the primary avenue by which many fans discover, sample, engage and share an album, label executives are paying closer attention to whether the track order of an album has grown or diminished in importance outside of the physical format.

In particular with subscription services like Spotify or Rhapsody, which pay labels on an agreed per-play basis, there has been interest to see if the order of tracks could have a significant enough effect on payouts made.

The Oct. 13 On-Demand Songs chart served, however, as a stark example that artists and labels may want to revisit the importance of songs' spots on albums. That week, as Mumford & Sons' sophomore set "Babel" debuted atop the Billboard 200 (with 600,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan), 11 of the 12 cuts on its standard edition roared onto On-Demand Songs. More noticeably, the order of the songs on the album almost mirrors that in which they bowed on the subscription streaming tally that week. Lead single "I Will Wait" started at No. 15, followed by the title cut at No. 16 and "Whispers in the Dark" at No. 21. The tracks are the third, first and second on the set, respectively.

The album's next four titles - "Holland Road," "Ghosts That We Knew," "Lover of the Light" and "Lovers' Eyes" - entered On-Demand Songs at Nos. 24, 28, 32 and 35, respectively, with tracks 9-12 arriving also almost identically to their album placement. (Last song "Not With Haste" just missed the survey that week, although it debuted the following frame at No. 41).

Such data suggests that the earlier a song appears on an album, the more likely a listener is to stream it. At the same time, a music consumer's attention span may be even shorter than any artist wants to believe.

The best lesson to take from studying albums' track sequences may be that even in an era of streaming, in which listener behavior seemingly reflects a tendency to sample only portions of releases, the album format appears to have a bright future. Per the Oct. 13 On-Demand Songs chart, the 11 cuts that debuted from Babel each totaled robust sums of between 555,000 and 330,000 on-demands streams, according to Nielsen BDS. Says Spotify chief content officer Ken Parks, "The fairly even distribution of listens across all the tracks on that record means that people are enjoying that music as a cohesive collection."

"For artists that tell a story with an album, with an intro, a pacing, a mood that's set, and a narrative that's being told, that's great news," he says. "They can still make that music available as they intend to tell that story and still expect that people are going to listen to it."

[30CamdenSquare]

In fact Keith Phelps mentioned on Twitter that if Youtube paid as well as Radio, everyone (musicians) would be rich. He then said YT counts 1,000,000 views as one spin on the radio. If that's right then IMO YT is getting away w/ murder because there are very few stations w/ 1 million listeners & only a fraction of them are listening at any given time.

Thanks Tusk. That's more in line w/ what I thought they'd pay. I wonder if Keith read CPM & thought that meant Cost per Million instead of Cost per Milli (per thousand).

[30CamdenSquare]

I used to have a rule for new albums, that I wouldn't let myself buy it unless I'd heard at least 2 songs off of it I really liked. I was disappointed more than a few times when buying an album after only hearing the lead single. Sometimes it was because there was a lot of filler on the album, but other times it was because the single wasn't a very good representation of the bands overall sound.

One thing that I do like now is that I can get a really good feel for an album, & in some cases hear the whole thing, before I buy it. I don't know if I have a favorite decade when it comes to albums. I have a lot of classic rock albums, but I a lot of albums that I love from every decade. I only buy a handful of albums each year, but quite a few of the new ones I've bought the past couple of years, I like all the way through.

[Himm2]

OK - I admit it. Many many years ago the only reason I bought Cheryl Ladd's vinyl LP Album was for the cover:



She was my favorite Charlie's Angel and I was kinda intrigued by her only almost good song on the album called "Skinny Dippin'"

[Himm2]

Jacob Lusk was right and I was wrong!

[john]

Jacob Lusk was right and I was wrong!

Did tweedy bird give you the word?